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Besides, the poor old chap, if it hadn't been for the colza last year,
would have had much ado to pay up his arrears."
For very weariness Charles left off going to the Bertaux. Heloise made
him swear, his hand on the prayer-book, that he would go there no more
after much sobbing and many kisses, in a great outburst of love. He
obeyed then, but the strength of his desire protested against the
servility of his conduct; and he thought, with a kind of naive
hypocrisy, that his interdict to see her gave him a sort of right to
love her. And then the widow was thin; she had long teeth; wore in all
weathers a little black shawl, the edge of which hung down between her
shoulder-blades; her bony figure was sheathed in her clothes as if they
were a scabbard; they were too short, and displayed her ankles with the
laces of her large boots crossed over grey stockings.
Charles's mother came to see them from time to time, but after a few
days the daughter-in-law seemed to put her own edge on her, and
then, like two knives, they scarified him with their reflections and
observations.


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